Bonjour my friends, I'm Frankie and welcome to Club Foody!
Fresh baked bread is my ultimate weakness... All right, so is homemade pasta, pastries,
sauces, and pretty much everything else... that's why I'm a foody!
Anyway with the Holidays just around the corner, I like to make a few bread recipes including this Jewish one...
In today's episode, I'll show you how to make my Challah Bread! This is a lovely recipe to make! It's
pretty similar to brioche with its spongy texture except oil is used instead of butter. It's slightly
sweet and perfect with many dishes especially if they are leftovers for French toast, mmm... So my friends,
let's get cooking! In the bowl of a stand mixer, we'll add active dry yeast, 1 tablespoon of honey -
now if you want a good trick when handling sticky ingredients, click on the top right corner
of your screen -, and we'll also add lukewarm water between 105º to 110º (40º to 43ºC) Fahrenheit.
We'll give a good stir so the ingredients are well combined and let it sit for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, in a large bowl, we'll add all-purpose flour and ground sea salt.
We'll whisk the ingredients for a minute or so and set aside for now. Next in a bowl, we'll add
a couple eggs, one egg yolk, 1/4 cup of canola oil and also 1/4 cup of honey.
We'll beat the egg mixture very well until nicely blended and set aside. All right,
back to the stand mixer... As you can see, the yeast is nice and foamy which indicates that it's alive
so we'll add the egg mixture and the dry ingredients but we'll reserve about 1/2 cup
and you'll see why in a few seconds. With the dough hook attachment, we'll process on speed 1 and
when it's mostly mixed, we'll increase the speed to 3 and continue until the dough clings to the hook.
To achieve that, we'll add a tablespoon at a time of the remaining flour and continue
doing that until it sticks to the hook. Then we'll increase our speed to 4 and knead it for 4 minutes.
When time is up, our dough should be springy. When we touch it, it bounces back. So instead of flouring
them, we'll oil our hands, take our dough out of the bowl and form a ball by pulling it under...
just like this. Then we'll place it in a large bowl that's already been oiled
and gently move the dough around to coat. We'll cover with a clean dish towel and transfer to
a draft-free area such as an oven. Depending if my kitchen is cool, I like to set my oven
at 350ºF/180ºC for about 1:30 minutes when I just finish mixing my yeast with water and honey.
It makes it nice and cozy. So we'll let it rise for 1:30 hours.
When time is up, we'll remove from its spot and as you can see, it easily doubled its size so we'll
knock the air out. We'll cover again and return to its draft-free spot for 1 hour. Sixty minutes later
and this is how the dough should look like. We'll transfer to a lightly floured work surface,
knock the air out again and sprinkle flour on it - you'll see that the texture is slightly greasy.
We'll knead the dough for a couple minutes adding flour if it needs it. Now let's get technical...
First we'll weigh our dough. Today we're making a six braids Challah
so we'll have to divide it by six therefore we'll cut it in two and weigh each piece. When they're
the same weight, we'll cut each into three equal pieces. Next, we'll pull it under to form a ball
with each of them. All right, so what we'll do is to flour the counter because we're gonna need
a lot of space. Working with one at a time, we'll stretch the ball to an oblong shape and start
rolling it with even pressure until it reaches 18 inches which is a foot and a half. Now keep in
mind that we'll have to let the gluten rest for a few minutes before we continue rolling it. As
you can see, it retracts but it's okay because you can work on another one in the meantime.
When the six braids are done, we'll gather the ends at the top and pinch them together -
make sure to squeeze nice and hard so they stay in place.
All right, let's start braiding... We'll take the right braid and fold it over the top to the left.
Then we'll take the left braid and fold it over the top on the opposite side. Now
we'll separate the four remaining braids in groups of two, leaving a space in the middle. The next move
is to take the left braid and place it down the center... just like this. Now to replace it,
we'll take the second braid on the right and fold it across the top again. From here, we'll move these
two braids further to the right and bring the top right braid to the middle and to replace it,
we'll take the second braid from the left and place it across the top. Now we'll move the top
left braid and place it down the middle and replace it with the second braid on the right,
crossing over the others. Then we'll move these two to the right to leave a space in the middle before
bringing the top right braid down the center and we'll replace it with the second one on the left.
We'll bring the top left braid down the center and replace it with the second one on the right.
We'll continue with the same pattern until we reach the end. One important thing to do is to
simply put the braids in place without tightening them - we're not braiding hair... we're braiding bread
When we run out of braids, we'll gather the remaining ends, squeeze them together and fold
them under so it's nice and neat... just like this. Now, we'll go back to the top where we started
and do the same by squeezing and folding the ends under so it's nice and neat as well.
Next, we'll carefully transfer the braided dough to a large baking sheet lined with a silicone mat.
We'll cover and move it back to the oven for 45 minutes. After it has proofed and increased in
size - look at how nice it is! -, we'll now brush on the egg wash which is the white we reserved earlier
whisk with one tablespoon of water. We'll make sure we get all the little nooks and crannies.
For the final touch, we'll sprinkle on some poppy seeds although you can substitute with kosher salt
or sesame seeds. Now if they are any spot that the poppy seeds don't stick to,
brush on a little bit more egg wash and sprinkle on some more seeds. Next, we'll transfer to a 350ºF/180ºC
preheated oven and bake for 40 minutes but halfway through baking, we'll rotate the pan.
When the baking time is up, we'll remove this gorgeous bread from the heat and transfer to a
wire rack to cool off before slicing - I would say about 30 to 40 minutes - and that's it we're done!
And my friends, this is our Challah Bread! Soft, tender and absolutely delicious, this is a great
bread to make! It has such a delightful taste to it and pairs so well with many dishes. If there's
any leftover, it makes amazing French toast... I hope you give it a try soon and be sure to
visit clubfoody.com for ingredient amounts, directions and more info...
Until next time my friends, bon appétit!